Recent Articles

Bill Brewster, junior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, works hard on behalf of the money that elected him. Unfortunately, he is emblematic of a system that skews politics away from the people.

A few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, in a street-level parking lot owned by the American Trucking Associations, one of those only- in-America scenes unfolded last April. With temperatures hovering near 90 degrees, men and women in expensive suits chafed uncomfortably as they waited in line. Young volunteers sporting bright yellow T-shirts were everywhere, bristling with the enthusiasm of what appeared to be their first political campaign. A crack unit of these scrub-faced ones patrolled the entrance to the lot, seizing the necks of new arrivals, quickly wrapping them in bright yellow bandannas, cowboy-style. In the heat, the added neckwear caused beads of sweat to form, giving the well-heeled attendees a faintly ridiculous air. Though few tasseled loafers were apparent, the guests were mostly Washington lobbyists, for American Airlines and the National Rifle Association, for Dow Chemical and the Tobacco Institute, for Southwestern Bell and the American Pharmaceutical Association...

Behind the grove of pecan trees and the iron gates, behind the whitewashed brick walls that surround the Texas governor's residence, a latticework of scaffolding, gangplanks, and ladders has risen around the fluted columns of the southern-style mansion. But inside there is a different sort of construction project taking shape: the George W. Project. To date it has cost more than $75 million (contributed in support of George W. Bush's two gubernatorial races and his quest for the presidency). And it's been test-run and honed to perfection by its two main engineers. First, there's George H.W. Bush, father of the candidate, whose pedigree has encouraged the Republican Party establishment to anoint his son its standard-bearer for 2000; and then there's Karl Rove, a savvy Texas political consultant and former Philip Morris intelligence operative who believes George W. is the one-size-fits-all presidential candidate for the millennium. Bush's critics like to say that he is all style and no...

R epresentative Gregory Meeks, an African-American lawyer and assistant district attorney elected to Congress in 1998 to represent a middle-class black neighborhood in Queens, New York, was undecided last year on the divisive issue of trade rights for China. Lobbyists for big business were battling the AFL-CIO and environmental groups on Capitol Hill for every vote, and Meeks, who'd previously voted against granting fast-track negotiating authority to President Clinton, was a prize. Sensing an opportunity, Representative Cal Dooley, a moderate California Democrat closely allied with that state's high-tech sector, moved in. As co-chairman of the House New Democrat Coalition, a bloc allied with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), Dooley was targeting fence-sitters to vote aye. Along with fellow New Democrats Harold Ford, Jr., of Tennessee and Bob Matsui of California, Dooley hooked Meeks up with a stream of corporate officials from Silicon Valley and the New York financial district...